Professor Nigel Clark

Research overview

I look at how social life is shaped and perturbed by physical forces. The idea of the `Anthropocene’ prompts us to see human beings as geological agents. But I also want to ask how our species acquired its geological agency: what physical forces we’ve tapped into and joined up with. I’m currently looking at how humans have used fire to transform `earthy materials’ - and in the process, how we’ve shaped our social and physical worlds. This leads on to the question of what kinds of material and social experimentation we should be considering in times of rapid climate change.